Monday, July 08, 2013

This contribution
intrudes, without permission, on an interesting aspect of a debate between
Kevin Vallier of the excellent Blog, Bleeding Heart Libertarians HERE andCorey Robin, of the occasionally
interesting Crooked Timber Blog, which posted an article of Robins from The
NationHERE .

Now I confess I do not know either of these two scholars and I also
confess that I have nothing fundamental to say on the philosophical substance
of their argument over the views of the Austrians (Mises, Rothbard, etc.,),
Friedrich Hayek, the latter of which towards whom I am generally most
sympathetic, and the ideas of Adam Smith, towards whom I am even more
sympathetic and knowledgeable , warts and all (a metaphor).However, I do have something to say
about one of the almost en passant general issues raised in this debate that
stirred some thoughts I had years ago when reading Smith.

Robin is quoted by Vallier as saying:

“In The Constitution of Liberty, Hayek developed this notion into a
full-blown theory of the wealthy and the well-born as an avant-garde of taste,
as makers of new horizons of value from which the rest of humanity took its
bearings. Instead of the market of consumers dictating the actions of capital,
it would be capital that would determine the market of consumption—and beyond
that, the deepest beliefs and aspirations of a people.”

I consider this part of their argument interesting despite its
unexamined quality.The detailed
examination of Robin v Vallier is less important (that is, whether Hayek can be
dismissively described as “elitist”, as Robin claims, which Vallier defensively
demonstrates otherwise (follow the link) than the thoughts this argument
provoked in my mind.I recognised
the germs of similar ideas of the imitative quality of the superior lifestyles
of the wealthyfor “the rest of
humanity”, alluded to by Adam Smith in both of his major Works, and I shall discuss
them below because they may be of interest to Smithian scholars and beginners,
and as far as I can recall I have not seen them discussed elsewhere before, but
then, perhaps, I now lead a too sheltered life since I stopped getting out like
I used to, and meet with, listen to, or speak formally and informally with
enough Smithian colleagues, especially on the US circuit frequented by leading
historians of economic thought.

[As always I shall be delighted to be corrected by any reader who knows
differently about other scholar’s work in this area, because scholars given new
information are always enlightened and, of course, correct their errors
immediately.]

I think that these debates generally tend to attract ideological
protagonists, in whose stances I have no interest.Whether Hayek is abused as an “elitist”, or whether Smith also
was a “servant of the rising bourgeoisie’’ and a 'long existing ruling class” are
ridiculous ‘schoolboy’ attributions.So let me examine the idea and see what it shows to us about its
substance and significance.

First, I refer to Smith’s Moral Sentiments, 1759, and his parable
(metaphor) of the ‘poor man’s son’.This is about a young son whose ambitions to join the life-styles of the
rich landlords provokes Smith’s into a bout of full-flight (metaphoric)
moralistic contempt.He was after
all lecturing to a class of impressionable young teenagers (14-16 years olds) from
7 am in the morning and through a long-day and his feigned pulpit-like tone (a
simile) was appropriate to hold their attention while he developed his
philosophical punch-line (I am sure many of them would have heard similar
dramatic tones from their local Presbyterian preachers on Sundays; and I am
also sure many lecturers among today’s Lost legacy readers will have used
similar mimicking techniques when (purely secularly) addressing large Economics
101 classes – I certainly did in my first-year lectures to my classes of c250+
at Strathclyde University in the 70s, when explaining neoclassical ‘Max U’ ideas
(Deirdre McCloskey) using two utility maximising farmers, “Smith” and “Jones”, exchanged
different goods that they both valued differently, and in consequence they each
could become better off in some ways because voluntary bargaining predominantly
results in a positive, not a negative, sum exchange (Smith WN.I.ii.2). Otherwise they would desist and
prefer a monotonous diets.

So, what was Smith’s account of the substance of the “poor man’s son’s”
ambition?

“He finds the cottage of his father too
small for his accommodation, and fancies he should be lodged more at his ease
in a palace. He is displeased with being obliged to walk a–foot, or to endure
the fatigue of riding on horseback. He sees his superiors carried about in
machines, and imagines that in one of these he could travel with less
inconveniency. He feels himself naturally indolent, and willing to serve
himself with his own hands as little as possible; and judges, that a numerous
retinue of servants would save him from a great deal of trouble. He thinks if
he had attained all these, he would
sit still contentedly, and be quiet, enjoying himself in the thought of the
happiness and tranquillity of his situation. He is enchanted with the distant
idea of this felicity. It appears in his fancy like the life of some superior
rank of beings, and, in order to arrive at it, he devotes himself for ever to
the pursuit of wealth and greatness” (TMS IV.1.8: 181).

I considered this passage from Smith’s
TMS a clear endorsement of Hayek’s assertion quoted above from Robin
outlining a “notion [0f] a
full-blown theory of the wealthy and the well-born as an avant-garde of taste,
as makers of new horizons of value from which the rest of humanity took its
bearings.”

Smith explains:

“To obtain the conveniencies which
these afford, he submits in the first year, nay in the first month of his
application, to more fatigue of body and more uneasiness of mind than he could
have suffered through the whole of his life from the want of them. He studies
to distinguish himself in some laborious profession. With the most unrelenting
industry he labours night and day to acquire talents superior to all his
competitors. He endeavours next to bring those talents into public view, and
with equal assiduity solicits every opportunity of employment. For this purpose
he makes his court to all mankind; he serves those whom he hates, and is
obsequious to those whom he despises. Through the whole of his life he pursues
the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose which he may never arrive
at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquillity that is at all times in his
power, and which, if in the extremity of old age he should at last attain to
it, he will find to be in no respect preferable to that humble security and
contentment which he had abandoned for it. It is then, in the last dregs of
life, his body wasted with toil and diseases, his mind galled and ruffled by
the memory of a thousand injuries and disappointments which he imagines he has
met with from the injustice of his enemies, or from the perfidy and ingratitude
of his friends, that he begins at last to find that wealth and greatness are
mere trinkets of frivolous utility, no more adapted for procuring ease of body
or tranquillity of mind than the tweezer–cases of the lover of toys; and like
them too, more troublesome to the person who carries them about with him than
all the advantages they can afford him are commodious. There is no other real
difference between them, except that the conveniencies of the one are somewhat
more observable than those of the other. The palaces, the gardens, the
equipage, the retinue of the great, are objects of which the obvious
conveniency strikes every body. They do not require that their masters should
point out to us wherein consists their utility. Of our own accord we readily enter
into it, and by sympathy enjoy and thereby applaud the satisfaction which they
are fitted to afford him. But the curiosity of a tooth–pick, of an ear–picker,
of a machine for cutting the nails, or of any other trinket of the same kind,
is not so obvious. Their conveniency may perhaps be equally great, but it is
not so striking, and we do not so readily enter into the satisfaction of the
man who possesses them. They are therefore less reasonable subjects of vanity
than the magnificence of wealth and greatness; and in this consists the sole
advantage of these last. They more effectually gratify that love of distinction
so natural to man. To one who was to live alone in a desolate island it might
be a matter of doubt, perhaps, whether a palace, or a collection of such small
conveniencies as are commonly contained in a tweezer–case, would contribute
most to his happiness and enjoyment. If he is to live in society, indeed, there
can be no comparison, because in this, as in all other cases, we constantly pay
more regard to the sentiments of the spectator, than to those of the person
principally concerned, and consider rather how his situation will appear to
other people, than how it will appear to himself. If we examine, however, why
the spectator distinguishes with such admiration the condition of the rich and
the great, we shall find that it is not so much upon account of the superior
ease or pleasure which they are supposed to enjoy, as of the numberless
artificial and elegant contrivances for promoting this ease or pleasure. He
does not even imagine that they are really happier than other people: but he
imagines that they possess more means of happiness. And it is the ingenious and
artful adjustment of those means to the end for which they were intended, that is
the principal source of his admiration. But in the languor of disease and the
weariness of old age, the pleasures of the vain and empty distinctions of
greatness disappear. To one, in this situation, they are no longer capable of
recommending those toilsome pursuits in which they had formerly engaged him. In
his heart he curses ambition, and vainly regrets the ease and the indolence of
youth, pleasures which are fled for ever, and which he has foolishly sacrificed
for what, when he has got it, can afford him no real satisfaction. In this
miserable aspect does greatness appear to every man when reduced either by
spleen or disease to observe with attention his own situation, and to consider
what it is that is really wanting to his happiness. Power and riches appear
then to be, what they are, enormous and operose machines contrived to produce a
few trifling conveniencies to the body, consisting of springs the most nice and
delicate, which must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and
which in spite of all our care are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and
to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor. They are immense fabrics,
which it requires the labour of a life to raise, which threaten every moment to
overwhelm the person that dwells in them, and which while they stand, though
they may save him from some smaller inconveniencies, can protect him from none
of the severer inclemencies of the season. They keep off the summer shower, not
the winter storm, but leave him always as much, and sometimes more exposed than
before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to
death (TMS IV.1.8: 181]”

This
extensive quotation underlines the point that clearly, Smith, playing the part
of the preacher, hits the poor man’s son hard with the doom-laden personal
consequences of his vain ambitions. Smith the historically-minded, moral
philosopher and political economist steps in by taking the broad sweep of
history into account to peer behind the passing and deceptive motivations of impressionable
young listeners:

“And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this
deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.
It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses,
to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences
and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed
the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into
agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new
fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the different
nations of the earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to
redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of
inhabitants” (TMS IV.1.10: 183)”.

All human actions can have unintended consequences, some “good” and some
“bad”, in various mixes, senses and guises for either the individuals or their
societies, or both.

Dramatically, Smith, even if en passant, focusses, without elaborating, on the ultimately important role provoked
by admiration of the very rich and their life styles an status “as makers of new
horizons of value from which the rest of humanity took its bearings.” Imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery, hence various layers of rich and more junior imitators not yet joined
to the authentic ‘stinking rich’, and more importantly, even in its simplest,
crudest versions, imitation of something like its original manifestations by
those poorer imitators is aimed not at the rich and wealthy who wouldn’t notice
as they do not mix with the hoi polloi, at are their perceived inferiors.Fashionable young ‘trendiest’ exponents
of the young exhibitionists distinguish at a glance between their ‘in-group’
and other ‘out groups’, such as ‘teddy boys and girls’, later ‘mods and rockers’,
and today’s ‘A-list’ through to‘Z-list’
celelbrities.

[I might add I was ever an observer of these distinctive youth ‘cultures’;
we couldn’t afford to be participants! – leading me to assert that how
imitation and defiant counter-cultures today are high grossing industries, as
their forebears in the early emerging markets were in the mid-to late feudal
times, and in classical times before then.]

Consider the followers of the passing flames enjoying celebrity status
in today’s world of media gossip watchers and, most important, how millions aim
at mimicking their dress (even undress), public appearances, behaviours, new
slang, trivial pursuits, and as regularly switch their attention from those
considered to be ‘past it’ through to new headliners on their way ‘up’ and becoming
noticed.

However, I am not drawing any moral conclusions from my
observations.They may help
to show that some few or even many, people at the lower end, or, if you prefer
a less deferential expression for it at the opposite end, of the wealth
distribution spectrum do aspire to mimic the rich and powerful elites, that it
is not something alien to the human experience through the millennia, neither
is it alien to scholarship to recognisethis undoubted historical and persistent fact in human life in
societies.It is also mandatory!

Moreover, it is not in any way an indication of some ideological
impurity on Hayek’s, or a desire to credit the phenomenon as a positive benefit
of the bourgeoisie by Hayek, Smith, and today’s Libertarians, which no
self-respecting Leftist ideologue could ever admit to.

Incidentally, Corey Roberts is somewhat at variance with some passages
in Karl Marx on this topic.He
recognized the revolutionary (his words) role of the bourgeoisie in creating
the possibility of the modern world of his times, and we can observe just how
much further there is to go even yet.

So I sum up, referring to Adam Smith, the positive aspect of the
lifestyles that produced “tweezers” and more accurate time pieces also created
demonstrable demand for them first among those who could afford them and later
those who could not afford them in their current circumstances to aspire to
find means of doing so.Some
turned to criminal enterprises, others to new careers in the expanding
industries.Not everybody who
worked in dreadful conditions in the new manufacturing ‘satanic mills’ was appallingly exploited; careers as supervisors, gang leaders,
technically-skilled engineers, clerks, machine repairers created new aspiring
classes in their thousands in the 19th and 20th
centuries.

My own Heriot-Watt University was originally founded in 1822 as the
first ‘mechanics and arts school’ in Scotland, teaching boys, and later girls,
basic sciences for employment in what became known as the “industrial
revolution”.As they say, the rest
was history.

Spreading aspirations to access the consumption of ‘necessaries,
conveniences, and amusements” of those considered in each generation of the “well
born” was and remains a powerful driving force for markets to supply them.Hayek was right on this debating point
and Valliers too.Robin
needs to think again.

I see no reason to be defensive about facing
such a charge by Robin; by its nature history is about the dispersed dynamics
of a constantly small but ever changing minority who see the wealthy as
enjoyers of living standards to which they aspire to mimic by admiring their
supposed good tastes and want to share them too.To see such aspirations and the alleged despicable actions
that follow as a corruption of ‘working class solidarity’ is utter tosh.